Al Di Meola: Consequences of Chaos

Al Di Meola was only 19 when jazz piano/keyboard
legend Chick Corea poached him from
the Berklee College of Music and gave him the free
rein to unleash his blindingly fast electric lines—
lines that helped define the sound of 1970s fusion.
By the end of that decade, the New Jersey native
had also successfully established himself as a solo
artist with the 1976 debut of Land of the Midnight
Sun, which was followed by Elegant Gypsy the next
year. On these and other albums, Di Meola and
his ubiquitous Les Pauls forged a bold electric style
that was equal parts rock and Latin.

But while Di Meola was a terrifyingly dexterous
electric guitarist, he was also a remarkable
acoustic shredder, as he proved in the early
1980s trio he led with co-guitarists John
McLaughlin and Paco de Luc’a—a group
whose fiery sound was captured on the 1981
recording Friday Night in San Francisco.

With his string of 1980s solo albums—
including 1980’s Splendido Hotel and 1982’s
Electric Rendezvous—Di Meola continued
to explore a synthesis of rock and jazz with
Latin and non-Western idioms. His extreme
playing earned him reverence from guitarists
of all stripes—although some detractors also
said his virtuosity unsuccessfully masked a
lack of musical content and expressiveness.

Undeterred, Di Meola soldiered on in
the early 1990s with a new group, World
Sinfonia, whose main benchmark was the
work of the Argentinean composer and
bandone—n player Astor Piazzolla—inventor
of the modern tango. His work during that
decade, including on 1994’s Orange and Blue
and 1998’s The Infinite Desire, focused less
on blazing lines and more on composition, a
trend that would continue into the 2000s.

For his latest offering, Pursuit of Radical
Rhapsody, Di Meola worked with World
Sinfonia to create a largely acoustic album
of tunes that draw inspiration from tricky
Latin rhythms and global sojourns. Largely
absent are the guitarist’s over-the-top solo
flights of decades past. Instead, the focus is
on the ensemble, kaleidoscopic changes in
instrumentation and texture, and rhythmic
and harmonic invention. The result is a
depth of musicality that should confound
Di Meola’s earlier critics.
In the 1990s, you stepped away from the
electric guitar for a while. Why?

For one thing, the appeal for the extreme
volume that I started off with in the ’70s had
waned over the years. I got sick of carrying
around a ton of heavy equipment—it was
such a physical and financial drain. Things
had been so much easier with the acoustic
trio I played in with John McLaughlin and
Paco de Luc’a. So I was thinking about that
group, and something else happened: I was
developing as a writer and found that I could
express myself better and make more meaningful
music on the acoustic—and audiences
really responded to that.
In what ways do you express yourself better
on the acoustic?

My ideas don’t get lost in a wall of distortion
and pyrotechnics, and I tend to write
music that’s both subtler and more rhythmically
adventurous on the acoustic. But in
the last few years, I’ve been reintroducing
the electric a little bit at a time, often mixed
in with my acoustic sound by way of a
processor like the Roland VG-88. After all,
the electric sound is such a big part of my
history, so I couldn’t just turn my back on
it completely. It’s good to be back.
Having had that break from the electric,
do you find that you now approach the
instrument differently?

To answer that, I have to look back to
my early days playing fusion in the ’70s.
My electric solos were so often based on
the static harmony—a single chord, like
E minor or A minor, for a long period of
time—that was so popular then. There
wasn’t much I could do on that one chord
except build up to the sort of highly technical,
velocity-laden type of climax that
audiences ate up. It was certainly exciting
at the time, but I’ve come to appreciate a
lot more harmonic movement in music, as
well as strong balance—a good combination
of space and lyricism, with speed and
technique thrown in there at the appropriate
moments. How I play the electric
guitar has as much to do with my focusing
on the acoustic guitar—where every little
nuance is important—as it does simply
evolving as a musician. I can now say more
with an interesting progression or a syncopated
rhythm than with a barrage of notes
at high volume.

The electric playing on Pursuit of Radical
Rhapsody is characterized by restraint
and gracefulness, as well as by awesome
tone. How did you get such great sounds?

I played my PRS—the signature model
Prism, which is a double-cutaway solidbody
with two humbuckers and a very
warm sound. But the secret weapon was
a Dumble amp I borrowed in the studio.
I discovered that the beauty of a Dumble
is in the smoothness of its sustain, and I
could see right away why they’re so coveted
and expensive. Most other amps might
sound smooth in the booth when you’re
recording, but on the other side of the
glass, in the control room, you’ll hear all
these jagged edges on the sustain. That
Dumble was like cream, like butter—a
small amp with such a great sound.

Adam Perlmutter is a freelance writer, transcriber, and engraver living in Culver City, California. He contributes to Premier Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Guitar Aficionado, and other music magazines, and has written a number of instructional books, including Color Your Chords (Cherry Lane) and Jim Hall: Signature Licks (Hal Leonard).

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